


A Tangled Web

by shadowmaat



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Community: spook_me, Gen, Meat Puppets, Mind Control, Spiders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-08 02:38:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16420790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowmaat/pseuds/shadowmaat
Summary: Darth Sidious investigates the temple of an ancient Sith Lord who practiced arts so forbidden she was destroyed by the Sith Empire. He returns with far more than he bargained for.





	A Tangled Web

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to the [Spook_Me Multifandom Ficathon 2018](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fspook-me.dreamwidth.org%2F13256.html&t=OTFlODE4ZjVlODJmMzA5YjIyZDhiOTQ2ZDM3YjBiNGY1OWUwMjhhZixYUGxrWEFVYg%3D%3D&b=t%3AHVL9fUqBiIgDTZttKW8ooQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fshadowmaat.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F179462446389%2Fa-tangled-web&m=0). My prompt was "spiders" and my art prompts were:  
> [Malekai, Lord of Shadows](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/XaAdD)\- Dave Greko  
> [Marionette Master (MtG)](http://www.artofmtg.com/art/marionette-master/)\- James Ryman

Sidious kept his hood up as he blasted an entrance into the collapsed temple. Vast swaths of cobwebs swayed in the breeze. The ceiling was coated with them and they grew thick and twisted amid the crumbling columns. A network of vines fought for dominance with the webs, reclaiming what had once been a library of forbidden Sith knowledge controlled by the elusive Darth Aranea.

“How the mighty have fallen,” he sneered, crunching a broken skull beneath his boot as he moved deeper into the temple.

Lighting, at least, wasn’t an issue. The walls crawled with faint pinpricks of bioluminescence and by drawing on a faint trickle of his own power he could see well enough to avoid the pitfalls and traps, most of which had long since collapsed anyway.

It had taken him years to track down the temple’s location; information about Aranea herself had been aggressively purged from the books and holocrons he’d collected, but that only increased his curiosity. What could Aranea have done? What could she have known that caused the Sith themselves to brand her an abomination, hunted to the ends of the galaxy until they finally caught up with her on this dusty moon hidden deep within Wild Space?

He felt something crawling on his face and brushed at it, distracted by the pull of intense Darkness he could sense ahead of him. Dessicated skeletons, many of them wrapped in decaying webs, littered the floor, growing more numerous as he drew closer to the heart of Aranea’s temple. The familiar shape of lightsaber hilts were evident everywhere under the dust and matting, and he made a note to collect them on his way out.

Another tickle by his ear. He crushed whatever it was between thumb and index finger and flicked it away. The entrance to the inner chamber was well hidden, but Sidious was able to force his way within.

The sight that greeted him was… disappointing. Perhaps once this had been a library of forbidden secrets, but it seemed that his predecessors had arrived well before he had. Shattered pieces of holocrons littered the floor and there were graying piles of ash that, when kicked, revealed crumbling pieces of flimsi. The Sith of old had done a thorough job.

Snarling, he vented his frustration in the form of Force lightning, exploding the piles of ash and shattering chips from the stonework around him. One arc touched a pillar, causing the object atop it to glow. He stopped, studying it.

Beneath a heavy cocoon of sticky strands were the outlines of a human skull. Perhaps it was the final resting place of Darth Aranea. Or part of her, anyway.

“You disappoint me, Aranea,” he said, using the Force to lift the skull so he could stare into its dead, glowing sockets. “For all that you managed to strike fear into the heart of the Sith Empire, it seems you were as easily overcome as anyone.”

Something within the skull rattled and dropped out. Sidious caught it on his palm, staring at the glowing holocron. He could feel the power of it burning into his palm. This, this is what he had come for.

The skull fell, forgotten, spewing out thousands of glowing motes that crawled across the floor. Sidious exerted his will on the holocron, but could feel it fighting him. Enraged, he poured more power into it. And more. At last the holocron snapped open, but instead of revealing Aranea’s darkest secrets, all it disgorged was spiders. Thousands of them. Tiny. Glowing. Hungry. They swarmed his hand, digging into his flesh. He roared, flinging the holocron away and encasing his hand in lightning, frying every last one of them. The scent of burning metal filled his nostrils as he flicked his hand, dispelling the molten droplets.

He took a deep breath, reining in his fury, and glared down at Aranea’s skull.

“Useless bitch.” He crushed her skull into powder and pivoted, stalking back the way he’d come. This whole damned trip had been a waste of time. Even stopping to collect the saber hilts seemed a pointless exercise. He collapsed what remained of the temple as he left, feeling the start of a headache growing behind his eyes.

The headache had worsened by the time he reached Coruscant and his exertions on Vefur left him feeling exhausted. He canceled his appointments for the day, but his schedule showed one meeting he could not avoid.

“What news do you have that required me to risk everything in order to see you in person?” Sidious demanded, hoping that for once Count Dooku would get right to the point.

Dooku paused, regarding him. “It was  _you_  who requested this meeting to hear of my progress on Project Scythe.”

Sidious narrowed his eyes. He recalled no such thing and wouldn’t put it past the Count to try and trip him up, but he was in no mood to play games. His head throbbed.

“Get on with it.”

Dooku’s brow rose a fraction of an inch before he continued. “As you know, production has increased tenfold, with more droids being brought in to help manage…”

He droned on and on, telling Sidious things he already knew. The Count seemed to love the sound of his own voice and he never missed an opportunity to lecture, no matter how ill-timed. He was easy to tune out, at least. He wasn’t likely to say anything relevant for at least another ten minutes, which left Sidious with time to focus on his headache. And on the itch that seemed to be spreading through his veins. He scratched surreptitiously and felt his nails scrape against something hard. He glanced down at his arm to see a small bright bump just under his skin, traveling down towards his fingers. In fact there were numerous bright bumps all over his arm.

Before he had time to react pain exploded in his head. Sparks danced in his vision and he curled in on himself in an involuntary reaction. The feeling was excruciating; far worse than anything he’d suffered under his former Master’s tutelage. It felt as if he was being ripped apart from the inside out. As if there were tiny claws burrowing into his brain.

Somewhere far away he could hear Dooku asking if he was alright. He struggled to ignore the pain and regain control of the situation, but it was like being trapped in a sticky web inside his own mind and the more he fought the more entangled he became.

“Oh, I’m just fine, my Lord,” he heard himself say. Except it sounded less and less like his own voice and far more… feminine. “Better than I have been in centuries, in fact.”

Something in Sidious made him straighten, looking at Dooku, who took a large step back. It was getting hard to see him through the bright motes crawling across his eyes.

“I am afraid, however, that there’s been a slight change in plans.”

Dooku ignited his saber even as Sidious felt something tugging at his sinews, lifting his hands. Lightning shot from his fingertips, engulfing Dooku. It wasn’t just lightning, though; as his vision grew brighter and brighter he could see tiny silken filaments wrapping around his apprentice. Dooku shouted, dropping his saber, but the tiny bright sparks-  _nanospiders_ , something in his mind whispered- were already attacking him.

“Well, well,” said the cluster of nanospiders lodged in Sidious’s throat. “It seems you’ve been spinning your own web, dear foolish host. That will make my job  _so_  much easier. Thank you.”

Dooku- or what had been Dooku- stopped writhing on the floor and stood.

“One down and thousands more to go.” The Count spoke in the same voice Sidious now bore.

Filaments strained, pulling his mouth into a smile. “And that’s only the beginning.”

Deep within his own mind, Sidious screamed.


End file.
